


The Postman Only Rings Once

by surgicalfocus



Category: EXO (Band)
Genre: Baekhyun in short shorts, Fluff, Inappropriate Humor, M/M, Postman AU, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-27
Updated: 2018-10-27
Packaged: 2019-08-08 07:19:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,087
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16424882
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/surgicalfocus/pseuds/surgicalfocus
Summary: Sometimes Chanyeol wished the postman would wait around just a few seconds longer. Maybe then he’d stop missing him.





	The Postman Only Rings Once

**Author's Note:**

> Just something fun and stupid I wrote in a couple of days, so don't expect too much lol. It's fairly harmless apart from a bit of innuendo, and it's also incredibly cheesy. My apologies. Enjoy xx

 

 **** “I’m just saying that help is available for this sort of thing,” Jongdae said. “You know, 12-step programs and shit. Sort of like AA, but if you’re lucky, hopefully with less crying and hugging.”

“You’re supposed to be my editor,” Chanyeol wearily pointed out. “Not my life coach.”

He heard Jongdae snort on the other end of the line. “Why can’t I be both? Lord knows you need the help.”

With his phone glued to the side of his face, Chanyeol collapsed onto the couch, propping both his feet up on the armrest. “I’m a bit bored with life at the moment, that’s all, and it makes getting stuff in the mail seem really exciting. I don’t have a problem with spending, honestly.”

“Uh-huh. If you say so.” Jongdae sounded entirely unconvinced. “So how’s the manuscript coming along, then? You’ve been fobbing me off enough lately, Yeol — how the hell are we supposed to get this book done on time?”

“Oh, you love it when I fob you off.” When Jongdae made a little grunt of irritation down the phone at his cheeky reply, Chanyeol sighed and said, “alright, I know — I’m on it. I’m just a little stuck on the last few chapters... I’m not so sure about the ending I planned originally.”

“Well, let’s meet up for coffee on Friday, then, and we can nut it out together.”

“Alright. Sounds sexy.” Chanyeol heard the doorbell ring. “Ooh, that’s probably Baekhyun — I’m expecting a delivery. I’ll call you back later.”

 “ _Again_?” Jongdae sounded impressed and exasperated at the same time. “I can’t believe you’re on a first-name basis with the postman. You obviously buy way too much crap online.” His voice suddenly took on a sly tone. “Or is _he_ the reason why you’re buying too much crap in the first place?”

“That’s not the reason,” Chanyeol said, knowing full well that it was at least a part of the reason, mainly because Baekhyun was the hottest guy he’d ever seen. “Though his bum does look very nice in those microscopic shorts he always wears — but no, that’s not the reason. Anyway, we’re barely even acquaintances, he doesn’t know what I do or anything.” The doorbell rang again, two urgent _ding-dongs_. “Alright, now I really gotta go,” he said quickly, hanging up the phone.

Baekhyun ringing the doorbell twice meant that Chanyeol was already pushing his luck; usually he only rang it once, and if Chanyeol wasn’t there to open the door within about ten seconds, he was gone. This was completely unhelpful if, say, Chanyeol happened to be in the bathroom, or on the phone, or having a stress-release wank (increasingly common) — or was just generally occupied elsewhere. Sometimes while he was working on his book, he would end up drifting so far away that he would block out everything going on around him; even the sound of his phone ringing, or the doorbell. By the time he floated back down to Earth again, the postman would have already left, leaving him a note to pick up his parcel at the local post office instead. And there was nothing Chanyeol hated more than paying for something to be delivered to his home, only to have to go and pick it up from somewhere else.

He hurried over to the front door and yanked it open. “Hello,” he said to a grinning Baekhyun, already breathless from the five steps it took to get there. “How are you?”

Baekhyun tipped his little blue cap in response. “Good, thanks,” he said. “And you?”

“Good, and you?” Chanyeol leaned with one arm against the doorframe; maybe an attempt to look casual would offset the fact that he’d just asked the postman how he was a second time, without thinking. “What have you got for me today?”

“A package,” Baekhyun replied, and he bent over in his too-tight, too-short shorts to pick it up from the doorstep. He handed the parcel to Chanyeol, and then pulled out his little signature device from the breast pocket of his postman’s uniform. “Your autograph, please,” he said, smiling. He had soft pink lips like strawberry cake, and twinkling brown eyes, and honey-coloured hair, and all Chanyeol wanted to do was lay him out on the table and eat him.

Chanyeol took the stylus from Baekhyun and attempted to sign with an elegant flourish, but it only came out as a scribble. “Done and done.”

“Thanking you.” Baekhyun returned the device to his pocket, and stood there on Chanyeol’s doorstep with both his hands resting on his hips. He seemed to be in no particular hurry today. “What is it this time, anyway? Another crazy kitchen gadget?”

“Um, sort of. It’s a pair of chainmail gloves, so I won’t accidentally chop any fingers off while I’m cooking,” Chanyeol told him. “I saw a demo on the home shopping channel — seems pretty legit. They couldn’t even get an axe through them.”

“Ahhh,” Baekhyun said, letting the sound trail off into nothing. He had the decency to at least attempt feigning interest, even if it was half-hearted. “You doing a lot of cooking these days?”

“Well, not really,” Chanyeol admitted. “But I might do a bit more now that I have these.”

Baekhyun smiled with one side of his mouth, the effect of which was mildly devastating. “You said the same thing when you bought that expensive Japanese knife set, if I recall correctly.”

“The expensive Japanese knife set is the reason _why_ I need the gloves.” Chanyeol narrowed his eyes. “You know way too much about me. I don’t know if I like it.”

Baekhyun chuckled, dismissing the idea with a wave of one pretty hand. “Nah, I just have a good memory, that’s all. Anyway, I’ll see you around.” Chanyeol stole one last good, long look at the postman’s bum as he watched him walk down the front path, towards the red van parked out the front of the house. With a little sigh of longing, he took his package inside and shut the door.

 

 

* * * * *

 

 

Chanyeol liked Jongdae, he really did; but the problem with being good friends with one’s editor was that he often received unsolicited advice on his personal life as well as his manuscript. “You know what you need? You need to get out more,” Jongdae said to him, when they met up for coffee later that week as planned. “And then you’ll see that there’s a whole world out there, full of sexy people for you to flirt with! People who aren’t poor, unsuspecting postal workers trying to do their jobs! Imagine that. And it’ll give you more to write about, too. Maybe this is why you’re feeling uninspired lately.”

“I’ll get out more once this book is done, I promise,” Chanyeol said. “Also, if other people can pay for sex, why can’t I pay for a hot postman to come visit me once in a while?”

“Because it’s not ‘once in a while’. Seems like it’s once a week — at least.” Jongdae lifted his cappuccino up to his lips and took a sip, leaving behind a cute frothy moustache. “I’m willing to bet you’ve already spent your advance on all these fad appliances you keep buying. Have you even used that NutriBullet once since you got it?”

Much of the advance Chanyeol had been paid for his next book was indeed already long gone, but he didn’t feel the need to confirm this. “I don’t have a lot of time to go out shopping right now,” he said. It was true that he did buy a lot of shit online; he knew he had a proclivity for spending. But he had the money, so why not? He needed to do something with it, and this close to a writing deadline, there wasn’t a whole lot of opportunity for letting his hair down and doing fun things, like travelling. He had no time to explore the _real_ Amazon, and so instead he would explore amazon.com, which, it turned out, was just as full of the great unknown. He was always finding strange and wonderful things on there — finger puppets shaped like tiny hands; crocheted squid masks; an interesting photography book called _Images You Should Not Masturbate To_ , which he’d ended up buying. Now it had found a new home on his coffee table, where he kept it as a ‘conversation piece’.

Jongdae rolled his eyes. “What a load of bullplop,” he said, with a snort of amused disbelief. He reached over for the copy of Chanyeol’s manuscript on the table between them. “Alright, enough mucking around. Take me through chapters ten through twelve, and we can work out some of those kinks.” 

“Teehee,” Chanyeol said, “you said kinks.” Jongdae took the manuscript and whacked him over the head with it.

 

The meeting with Jongdae went better than he thought it would, and Chanyeol went home feeling a little more positive about where his novel was headed. When he opened the front door, though, he saw a little white sliver of doom lying on the floor: a slip of paper announcing that the postman had been around to deliver a package, and no one had been there to receive it. Chanyeol groaned. Now he would have to go down to the post office, in person — which meant physically leaving the house again, when he’d only just arrived home — and pick it up. He hadn’t even anticipated the arrival of any parcels that day; he had a new coffee machine coming, and some other odds and ends, and one of them must have arrived earlier than expected. He bent down to retrieve the little piece of paper. _‘Sorry we missed you!’_ , it said, annoyingly cheerful. Beneath this was scrawled the time at which Chanyeol would be able to collect his parcel from the post office: _after 3 PM_.

“Oh, no you’re not,” Chanyeol grumbled at the tiny piece of paper, “you’re not sorry at all.” He went down to the post office later that afternoon, but realised only when he got there that he had forgotten his driver’s license at home, and of course he had no other forms of identification on his person.

“You need to show valid ID or I can’t let you collect a delivery,” the lady at the counter said. Her name was Bom, and she always looked bored to death.

“Oh, come on,” Chanyeol pleaded; there was a line already forming behind him, full of busy people waiting to send things or pick them up. “Don’t you know who I am by now?”

He didn’t mean it to come out like that — he’d never been one of those people who played the _“don’t you people know who I am?!?”_ card. On the scale of literary celebrity, he was certainly clinging on somewhere at the minor end: well-known within his genre, but not so well-known anywhere else. Thanks to this relative anonymity, he could walk about freely whenever he wanted, with only a small chance of being approached and pestered to sign someone’s book. But they should have known who he was anyway, if only due to the simple fact that he’d been going there for years to pick up all his missed deliveries. At any given point in time, half of the parcels they kept in that little back room were probably his.

“Of course I know who you are, Mr. Park,” Bom said, a little testily, “but those are the rules.” But she took the slip of paper from Chanyeol’s hands anyway and carried it with her out into the back room. When she returned, she gave it back to him and said, “and you would’ve had to come back regardless, because this particular item isn’t currently here.”

“What do you mean, it’s not here? It says ‘pick up after 3 PM’,” Chanyeol said, shoving his watch in her face, “and it’s after 3 PM.”

Bom just laughed at him — the first time Chanyeol had seen her laugh. It could well have been the first time she’d ever laughed. “Oh, I wouldn’t go by anything Baekhyun says. He runs on his own time.”

 

Chanyeol sighed and admitted defeat, returning home empty-handed. He’d barely hit the couch before the doorbell rang, and he hurried over to answer it, only to find Baekhyun standing on his front doorstep.

“Good afternoon. Got a package for you,” he said, his voice as cheerful as a song. He winked at Chanyeol and then whispered, like it was some kind of secret, “It’s a _reaaaally_ big one today,” as though Chanyeol couldn’t see for himself, with his own eyes, how big it was.

“ _You_ ,” Chanyeol said, pointing an accusing finger at him. “Your note said I could pick it up at the post office after 3 PM! I just went all the way there for no reason.”

 Baekhyun merely shrugged, unapologetic. “Yeah, I know. But I was coming back in this direction anyway, so I thought I’d try to catch you a second time before I took it down there. Seeing as you always seem so busy, and all.”

“Oh. I see,” Chanyeol said, his irritation fading. Anyway, Baekhyun was too cute to stay mad at. “Well, that’s very kind of you.” 

“All good.” Smiling sweetly, Baekhyun held out his little device for Chanyeol to sign. “Can I get your autograph?”

The first time Baekhyun had said this, Chanyeol had been stunned for a second — until he realised that the postman was referring to his signature, and not requesting an actual autograph. He’d felt silly afterwards; he couldn’t expect Baekhyun to really know who he was. Not everyone out there read erotic thrillers. Not everyone _read_ , full stop. Who really had the time anymore? Time was money. Baekhyun didn’t even have a spare moment to ring Chanyeol’s doorbell more than once, so clearly he wasn’t rolling around in piles of free time either.

Chanyeol cleared his throat and signed for the parcel, before reaching out to take it from the postman’s hands. He struggled a little under the weight of it. “Whew, that’s heavy.”

“You know, you really should buy less shit,” Baekhyun said. “Unless you want to keep seeing me around here, that is. Ha ha!” He actually laughed like that — ‘ _ha ha_ ’. 

“You’re probably right.” Chanyeol smiled nervously in response, knowing that he had absolutely no intention of curbing his shit-buying habit. He was quiet for a moment. Should he say something, or was it too bold of him? Baekhyun was already halfway down the front path; if he was going to do it, he would have to do it now. But first, he would stare at that fantastic arse a moment longer.

“While we’re giving each other advice, you should try ringing the doorbell more than once,” he called out, before he could stop himself.

Baekhyun turned around slowly to look at him. “I beg your pardon..?” 

“I said you should ring my bell more than once, before you just take off. Sometimes I can’t get to the door right away,” Chanyeol said. “Otherwise I’ll keep missing you.”

“You really want me to do that?” Baekhyun asked, with a smile that was both secretive and slightly dangerous.

Chanyeol scratched the back of his neck. “Um. Well, yeah? I mean, only if it’s not too much trouble…”

“Otherwise you’ll keep missing me, huh.” Baekhyun chuckled. “I’m sorry, Chanyeol — I had no idea you’ve been missing me so much! You should’ve said something earlier.”

Chanyeol could feel himself going red, but he couldn’t think of a response. Really, what could he say to that?

Baekhyun looked thoughtful for a second or two, and then he said, “alright, tell you what. Just for you, next time I’ll ring not once, but _twice_. How’s that? I’ll be the postman who always rings twice.” He started to walk down the front path, and then he turned around again briefly. “Have you ever seen that movie, by the way? ‘The postman always rings twice’. That scene where they fuck on the kitchen table... man! What an eye-opener.” Then he walked on his sexy legs over to his little red van, whistling something cheery to himself, and bouncing along to the wonky beat of his own drum; meanwhile, Chanyeol stood there alone on the doorstep, holding his stupidly large package. He stared after Baekhyun, mesmerised, until he got in the van and drove away. What kind of genius (or nutcase) could have written such an odd, intriguing creature into existence? Real life really was stranger than fiction.

  

 

* * * * *

 

 

The next time Baekhyun showed up at his house, Chanyeol wasn’t expecting him at all; at that point, he had so many parcels coming that he couldn’t keep track of which ones were supposed to be arriving when, or even what they contained. So the doorbell rang at half past ten, and he had a crusty orange smear of dried egg yolk down the front of his white t-shirt, a souvenir from breakfast. That would not do at all. With no time to think or act, he quickly yanked the soiled shirt over his head, tossed it over the back of the couch and hurried to get the door.

Baekhyun’s eyes widened when he saw Chanyeol. “Um. Hi there.” 

It was a mistake, Chanyeol belatedly realised, as the postman’s gaze drifted over his shirtless torso, to open the front door looking like this. He had what could only be described as a ‘writer’s physique’, soft and cuddly from a chronic lack of movement. His hair was a complete mess. He was wearing striped pyjama shorts, and free-balling underneath them. So it seemed all the more surprising that Baekhyun should be staring at him the way he was now. 

Chanyeol distinctly remembered only one other time when Baekhyun had looked at him like that: the first time he ever saw the postman show up at his doorstep, when he’d looked from the package in his hands to Chanyeol’s face, several times back and forth.

“Is something wrong?” Chanyeol had asked him at the time, while trying not to choke at the first sight of his beauty. “Have you got the wrong address..?” 

The postman shook his head. “Oh, no,” he said, and then he’d smiled his first-ever smile at Chanyeol: gorgeous and toothy, and whiter than a Colgate advert. “You have an interesting name, that’s all. It’s pretty.” And Chanyeol had been told plenty of times over the years that his name was weird or hard to spell, but ‘pretty’ had been news to him. Just thinking about it now made him smile stupidly to himself.

Baekhyun’s mouth began to curl upwards at one corner, perhaps in response to Chanyeol’s silly grin. “I haven’t caught you at a weird time, have I?”

“No, of course not.” Chanyeol’s smile quickly faded. “I was… just about to jump in the shower, that’s all.”

What a filthy lie. But Baekhyun merely shrugged; he seemed to buy it, which was all Chanyeol cared about. “Your autograph, please,” he said, and Chanyeol did as he was told.

“I’ve noticed that you’re at home a lot,” Baekhyun observed while waiting for Chanyeol to sign. “You must work from home, then.”

Was this supposed to be small talk? Chanyeol couldn’t be sure. Lately, he didn’t do much talking of any size. “I guess you could say that,” he said.

He wondered if Baekhyun would finally ask him what it was he actually did for a living, but he didn’t. Maybe he was waiting for Chanyeol to volunteer the information on his own. 

“It must be nice not to have to wear pants to work,” Baekhyun said instead. “Or a shirt, for that matter.”

“I suppose.” Chanyeol suddenly felt too exposed and crossed his arms in front of his bare chest. “Working from home does have its perks. There are things about the regular 9 to 5 life that I certainly don’t miss… commuting and office politics and the like.”

“Doesn’t it get really lonely, though?” Baekhyun wore a concerned little frown as he asked this, which only made him look even more adorable. “I mean, I’m alone for much of the day, while I’m driving around. But I also come into contact with lots of different people, even if it’s only a brief exchange, so it doesn’t really seem all that bad.”

Chanyeol shrugged. “Sometimes it can be a bit lonely, I guess. You’re the only person I’ve talked to so far today.” This was apart from Jongdae, but Jongdae didn’t count.

“I see. Well, hang in there. Whatever it is you’re doing, I’m sure you’re doing a great job of it.” Baekhyun began to loosen his uniform collar with a finger. “Is it just me, or is it really hot today..?”

Chanyeol didn’t think it was that hot, but then he wasn’t wearing very much. “Would you like to come inside for a cold drink? I can make you a fresh OJ with that juicer I bought recently.”

“Oh, no… I’d best be getting off,” Baekhyun said, finally peeling his eyes away from Chanyeol’s body. “I mean, going off. Getting going.” He shook his head quickly each time he spoke, like none of these things was the right thing to say. “You know what? I’ll just be going.”

“Alright. Well, bye, then.” Chanyeol tried to hold back a smile. It was nice to know that the postman seemed flustered at the sight of him, and all he’d had to do was answer the door without a shirt on. He hadn’t even been anywhere near a gym in months. _You know what you’ve got going for you_? _You’re tall. Tall men get away with a lot,_ Jongdae once told him, and now Chanyeol could see that maybe he was right.

 

 

Still, it had taken Baekhyun’s suggestion that he might be lonely to make Chanyeol finally wonder if perhaps he really was; if maybe this was the real reason he was always buying shit he didn’t really use or need — always trying to fill some kind of blank space in his life that he couldn’t give a name to. And then the more he dwelled on it, the lonelier he became, until the point where the feeling became almost unbearable. He began to drag this crippling loneliness around behind him, everywhere he went, like a ball and chain. He found it increasingly hard to work, or sleep properly, or feed himself; it was like something in him had broken.  _You have to get out in the real world more,_ Jongdae was always telling him, _or you won’t have anything to write about._ And Chanyeol knew this was true, but until now the world inside his head had been full enough, and loud enough. That was why it was so hard, sometimes, to hear anything else; but now it had fallen silent, and he didn’t know how to fix it.

He was well and truly in a slump, he realised, and the sheer hopelessness of it would send him into bed by midday, and he wouldn’t be able to get out of it again until nightfall. There came a period of time during which he would while away entire evenings watching reruns of Friends; this only compounded the feeling, because those weirdos, each with their own irritating quirks and neuroses, all had each other to hang out with, while he — relatively normal, by comparison — didn’t really have anyone at all.

He’d just been cooped up inside too long, he told himself. When was the last time he’d heard another person’s voice, one that hadn’t come from the TV? 

 

First, he tried calling up a few friends — all of them too busy to talk to him, because they all had normal day jobs, and families, and other things to keep them occupied. Then he tried calling up Jongdae; but he only wanted to know how the book was going, which was the last thing Chanyeol wanted to talk about right now. His newlywed sister was on holiday with her husband, so he couldn’t call her. As a last resort, he tried calling his mother — but all she did was chew his ear off for twenty minutes about how he never called her anymore, and then when she was done, she let out a frustrated shriek and hung up on him. And so that was that.

Chanyeol knew he had exhausted all his options, leaving him with only one other. Perhaps he should buy himself a little something, he thought, just to make Baekhyun show up at his door again. So he did: on a whim, he ordered a bread maker, guaranteed next day delivery, and then spent the rest of the day feeling giddy with excitement about it — not the bread maker itself, but the fact that he would get to see Baekhyun and his sunny smile and his short-shorts again. They could make small talk about the weather, and the joys of not wearing pants — this was the definition of small talk as Chanyeol understood it, but he knew on some level that it could possibly lead to even bigger talk… which in turn could lead to a date. And then maybe some kissing on the lips… and then some kissing in other places, and then (perhaps a little further down the line) potentially waking up next to him every morning. Chanyeol had always had an overactive imagination, but then it only meant that he was in the right business.

 

The next day, the doorbell rang twice in the morning alone. Chanyeol opened it both times, only to have a fundraiser collection tin and an issue of _The Watchtower_ thrust into his face, but there was no Baekhyun. After this, he hovered around near the front door, refusing to move too far away from it. He wouldn’t turn the kettle on, or put headphones in, or even turn on the TV — all of these things were far too noisy. _Everything_ was too noisy! How was he going to hear the doorbell ring? When someone down the street began doing something loud and obnoxious with a pneumatic drill, he became unreasonably irate. _Ah, love... it turns us all into idiots_ , Jongdae probably would have said, if he’d been there to witness Chanyeol’s descent into madness. But Chanyeol wasn’t in love at all. Well, maybe he was, a tiny bit — but more than that, he didn’t want to go all the way to the bloody post office again. 

Anyway, even if he _did_ like Baekhyun — again, only a tiny bit — why would Baekhyun ever like him back? Baekhyun, who was young and sexy, and had an odd but fun sense of humour, and a bum that looked incredibly juicy in his too-tight, too-tiny shorts, like a couple of peaches stuffed inside a sock. Then Chanyeol heard the sound of a vehicle pulling up outside, immediately scattering any thoughts about Baekhyun’s juicy peach-bum. He ran his fingers through his hair to neaten it up, and then changed his mind and made it messy again, and he waited. And waited. He held his breath and listened, but he heard nothing. The doorbell didn’t even ring once.

Finally losing his nerve, he opened the front door in time to see… no one. There was no red van parked out the front of his house, but when he looked down, he saw that there was a cardboard box on the doorstep — his brand new bread maker. On top of it, a small handwritten note: _‘no autograph needed for this one, it was sent by regular post. Have a good day =)’_

Chanyeol sighed dejectedly; he could have sworn he’d forked out extra for registered mail. He bent down to pick up the parcel, staring at the note. Baekhyun’s handwriting was loopy and generous, and slanted noticeably to the right; he knew that this probably meant something, but he couldn’t think of what that might be.

  

 

* * * * * 

 

 

On the following weekend, Chanyeol took Jongdae’s advice and ventured out of the house properly, for the first time in a good while. He didn’t really know what to do with himself, so he decided he’d go real-life shopping, just like the plebs did. He even had his groceries delivered to his doorstep these days, so this would be an adventure. 

 Instead, it was incredibly distracting. There were people everywhere: all yapping and shouting at each other, their children running around like tiny maniacs. There were endless rows of shops: shop after shop after shop, offering so many goods and services — all clamouring for his attention and his money with their brightly-coloured SALE posters and overstocked shelves. How were people supposed to get anything done in such an environment, let alone remember what they came for? It wasn’t long before it began to make him strangely anxious, and he felt like he had to go home again.

Before he left, he paid a visit to the little book shop opposite the newsagent, where he headed straight for the crime section. He hadn’t done that in a long time; not since he was a relative newcomer, when the thought of seeing his own books on the shelves was still a novelty. There was someone already standing in front of the shelf when he got there, a young man with honey-brown hair and gold wire-framed glasses, holding a book in his hands. When he noticed Chanyeol approaching, he looked up at him expectantly, with raised eyebrows, and said, “oh! Fancy seeing you here.”

Chanyeol gawked at him stupidly. “Baekhyun..?”

Baekhyun laughed his funny _‘ha ha!’_ laugh. “Speak of the devil,” he said, and then he held up the book he was holding — which happened to be Chanyeol’s last published novel, _Speak of the Devil_.

Chanyeol glanced at the book, with his name slapped across the cover in enormous blood-red letters, and then he looked at Baekhyun. “I probably have some explaining to do, don’t I?”

“Oh, no,” Baekhyun replied, shaking his head. “I knew… I’ve known for ages. And just between you and me, I’m a really big fan. In fact, I’ve already read this one from cover to cover several times; but my dumb puppy tore my original copy to shreds the other day, and so now I’m here buying another one.” He smiled. “But it’s worth every cent.”

Chanyeol couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “Ah… I didn’t realise you were a fan. You never mentioned it,” he said, with a nervous chuckle. Now that he had discovered that Baekhyun liked his books, he felt like he could go straight home and write a million more of them. “Actually, you have no idea how happy it makes me, hearing you say that.”

“Well, maybe I can finally get your _real_ autograph, then,” Baekhyun said, and then he laughed softly. “I’ve been wanting to ask you that for so long, but I felt really shy about it, for some reason. And I didn’t want you to think I was some crazy fan trying to stalk you.”

After Baekhyun had paid for his book, Chanyeol took it from him and flipped it open to the dedication page to sign it. “Would you like me to write a message as well, or should I just sign my name?”

“Dunno.” Baekhyun shrugged. “Go nuts, if you like.”

Chanyeol nodded. Smiling, he read aloud as he wrote: _“To Baekhyun: I hope you enjoy this book more than your dog did. From Chanyeol. P.S. — you already know where I live, so you might as well have my number too.”_ When he handed the book over again, Baekhyun was blushing right up to his hairline: a lovely and satisfying sight. “Oh, I forgot to add something. Can I have it back for a second?” He took the book from Baekhyun again, and once more read aloud as he wrote. _“P.P.S. — I think you’re gorgeous. Coffee sometime?”_

Baekhyun laughed as he took the book back from Chanyeol, slipping it inside its brown paper bag. “Sure,” he said, “I’d love to. Why don’t we go grab one right now?”

 

 

_* * * * *_

 

 

 

Within a few months, the story of Chanyeol’s life had become almost unrecognisable from what it had been previously: he and Baekhyun began dating, he stopped impulse-buying so much stuff, and he started to feel a lot more confident about his book. With Jongdae’s help, he’d managed to sort out the tricky ending, and to his great relief they had now moved on to final revisions. It really seemed like he might comfortably make the publisher’s deadline after all.

Without question, the person who seemed the most excited about the upcoming release of the new book was Baekhyun. “You have no idea how pumped I am to read this book,” he said, while they were lying in Chanyeol’s bed together on a calm Saturday morning. “I already know it’s going to be my new favourite… I’m never going to shut up about it. I’ll be your personal cheerleader — I won’t rest until every single person I know has bought it and read it.”

Chanyeol just laughed at him. “You weird, lovely thing,” he said, reaching out to push Baekhyun’s hair away from his eyes, before tenderly trailing his fingers down over one of his cheeks. Cupping Baekhyun’s chin, he leaned in to kiss him softly on the lips. “How on earth did I ever live without you..?”

“Well, you made up for my glaring absence in your life by buying a lot of shit that you didn’t need.” Baekhyun said this with a pitying little sigh, although Chanyeol knew he was only joking. “You poor bastard… you obviously had no clue what you were missing out on. And all you had to do that whole time was ask me out.”

Chanyeol had to agree with him. “I really was a hopeless case, wasn’t I? Filling all those gaping holes with new appliances… I was so lost.”

“Mmm,” Baekhyun hummed in reply. His beautiful sleepy eyes drifted down to Chanyeol’s lips again, and stayed there. “Now you don’t buy anywhere near as much stuff as you used to, which is very interesting. Why do you suppose that is?”

“It’s because I don’t need an excuse to get you to come to my house anymore,” Chanyeol said drily. “In fact, now I can’t get you to leave.”

“Very funny.” Moving in closer, Baekhyun began nibbling on Chanyeol’s earlobe, as he had a habit of doing, which Chanyeol loved. “So I’ve got a package for you today, Mr. Park,” he whispered, “and it’s a really, _really_ big one this time.”

Chanyeol laughed and rolled his eyes. He tilted his head to one side so that Baekhyun could kiss his neck instead. “It’s always a really big one, according to you. Anyway, I thought the postman doesn’t come on weekends.”

“This one does,” Baekhyun said, his breathy laughter tickling Chanyeol’s skin. “He’ll come whenever you want him to. Multiple times, if you like.”

“I see. Well, in that case…” Chanyeol was so busy enjoying himself that he almost didn’t notice his phone vibrating on the bedside table. He saw that Jongdae was calling him. “Aww man, it’s Jongdae. I think he wants to discuss book stuff.”

“Tell him to call back later, then. Tell him you’re expecting an urgent delivery this morning, and you need to be around to receive it.”

“Alright. You’re the boss.” Chanyeol picked up the phone and answered it. “Listen, I can’t talk right now,” he said to Jongdae, “I’ll call you back later.” Ignoring Jongdae’s protests, he hung up the phone and tossed it onto the floor next to the bed. “Oops… he sounded mad, didn’t he? Well, he’ll get over it. Eventually.”

“Uh-huh. Now, this book you’ve been working so hard on,” Baekhyun said in his soft, purry bedroom voice, moving his lips from Chanyeol’s neck back up to his ear. “Will it have a happy ending?”

“I can’t tell you that! You’ll just have to wait and see.” Chanyeol smiled and booped Baekhyun’s cute little nose with a finger. He reached over to pull him in closer, softly kissing his forehead, and then the tip of his nose, and then, at last, his mouth. “What do _you_ think, beautiful? Do you think my story will have a happy ending..?”

Baekhyun smiled into the kiss. He stopped for a moment to pull his shirt up over his head with one hand, before rolling on top of Chanyeol, kissing him even harder, and whispering, “I do.”

 

  


End file.
